Thanksgiving's Almost Here...Time for CHRISTMAS!

The Christmas shopping season has been more-or-less underway since Halloween.
(Remember when it didn't begin until after Thanksgiving?)

In order to make your Yuletide shopping a breeze, we're offering a guide to reasonably-priced pop culture collectibles that would make great gifts for the-hard-to-please person in your life!

You think the economic situation is bad now?Go back 84 years ago, to November 1938 and see...elves were picketing Santa's WorkShop for better pay!

(You'll note that the cover is dated January, 1939. But it was actually on sale in November, 1938! Publishers used to cover-date comics and pulps two to three months ahead of the actual on-sale date to keep the books on the stands for as long as possible!)

Thus do we at Atomic Kommie Comics™ offer another retro-styled collectible for your Christmas gift-giving consideration, and offer you a bit of media history at the same time!

In this case, we proudly present one of our Christmas in the Comics line from our Cool Christmas collection: numerous digitally-remastered comic covers featuring classic characters celebrating Christmas, including The Green Lama, Fast Willie Jackson, SuperSnipe, and Edison Bell: Boy Inventor, as well as two long-out-of-print versions of The Big Man, Santa, himself!

Available on a multitude of memorabilia including greeting cards, mugs, hoodies, face masks, and other goodies, these pop-art collectibles are NOT available in any brick-and-mortar stores, only on-line thru us!

And don't forget our Santa Claus--the Man Himself, A Christmas Carol starring Scrooge, the Hardly-Abominable SnowMan, and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians lines!

There's something for everyone under the tree at Atomic Kommie Comics™!

Space Hero Saturdays GET LOST! "Ace of Space: Four-Flush Gordon"

If you're a poker player, you'll get the reference in the name of the title character...

...if not, we'll explain it at the end of this classic comedy tale!

A four flush (also flush draw) is a poker hand that is one card short of being a full flush.

"Four flushing" refers to empty boasting or unsuccessful bluffing.

Written and illustrated by the team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito for first issue of their short-lived 1954 humor title Get Lost, for their own short-lived publishing house, MikeRoss Publishing,  this was their almost-mandatory Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers spoof all humor publishers in the 1950s did!

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Sincerest Form of Parody

Friday Fun TEENAGERS INGENUE "Suzie's Theory of Relative(ity)"

From 61 years ago...

...a look at how teenagers allegedly perceived Yuletide family revelry, from Dell's Teen Agers Ingenue (December, 1961), illustrated by Susan Perl.

And yes, this was a real magazine targeted towards teens!
We'll be showing your more examples from it during the Christmas season!

Holiday Reading Room SANTA CLAUS FUNNIES "First Noel" or "First Nowell"?

Is it "Noel"...

...as most spell it these days?

From Dell's Santa Claus Funnies #1 (1942), illustrator unknown

Or is it...

..."Nowell", as seen in Dell's Four Color Santa Claus Funnies #91 (1945)?

Illustrated by Arthur E Jameson.

"Nowell" is the English (British) spelling...and the hymn is of British origin.

"Noel" is the French (and other Old Latin-based languages') spelling.

Presumably it became the standard when the hymn was used in hymnals (which used Old Latin verses for many songs, though I've never heard an Old Latin version of  "First Nowell") in the 18th Century.

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ROBOTMEN OF THE LOST PLANET "Chapter One: the Massacre of Mankind!"

Last week, we showed you a 1970s version of this robo-apocalyptic tale...

...now witness the sheer terror of the original 1950s version!

The art for this 1952 one-shot title from Avon Comics is by Gene Fawcette, an Avon mainstay who did everything from horror to Westerns to romance.
If you compare the two tales, you'll see the robots are totally different in this version.
They're based on a still-popular toy first marketed in the early 1950s... Obie the Popping Martian/Panic Pete/Bug-Out Bob!
Who came up with the idea is unknown, and there was no attempt at an actual tie-in between the toy and the comic...

Beyond that, the most unusual aspect of this tale is the scripter...Walter Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant", the primary writer of the legendary pulp character, The Shadow!

Yeah, that guy!

Gibson, a trained magician-turned writer did very little "hard" sci-fi during his long career...except in 1951-54, where he edited (and wrote under several pseudonoms) most of the contents of Charlton's short-lived pulp magazine (only two issues) Fantastic Science Fiction, as well as Charlton's Space Adventures comic for its' first eleven issues and co-creating and scripting Spurs Jackson and his Space Vigilantes for Charlton's newly-created Space Western Comics!
(Yes, it really existed, as shown HERE!)
He also wrote this comic and several other one-shots for Avon Comics.

For the record, Gibson also wrote two volumes of prose adaptations of Twilight Zone TV episodes (with a couple of original tales mixed in), but none of those were sci-fi.
BTW, while this was the only tale adapted into b/w in the 1970s, there were two more chapters of the man vs funky robot saga!
You'll see them next Wednesday and the Wednesday after that...

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Panic Pete!